My Favorite Vegan Bloggers

I look at a lot of blogs on the regular. Several of them have nothing to do with food, most are about everyday lives. I like those best. I like to see what people are doing and eating.

Here's some of my favorites:

1. Awesome. Vegan. Rad. - she's a fellow PPKer and I wish I could hang out with her. Her blog posts are interesting and funny. They're what I wish mine were.

2. GetSconed - another fellow PPKer and I do hang out with her. She posts many recipes and lots of pictures of her food life. She's a vegan that's involved in several vegan-centered activities, such as Vegan Iron Chef and the upcoming Vida Vegan Conference here in Portland!

3. Joanna Vaught - Yeah, another PPKer...There's not a lot of vegan bloggers who aren't on the PPK, it would seem. Joanna is a friend of mine as well. We bonded over "cycles" of America's Next Top Model and I even landed myself on the cover of her cookbook (headless), Yellow Rose Recipes. On her blog, she talks about her favorite things/books/etc, her adorable son Milo and food. She also has a beautiful yellow rose tattoo on her forearm that I love.

There are just a few, perhaps I'll do another posting of some others a little later.

Ye Olde Vegan MoFo Standby: Questionnaire

If you know me even somewhat well (like, if you were ever my Myspace or Facebook friend...or read this blog), you'll know that I love questionnaires! Perhaps because I am horrible at coming up with things to just write about willy-nilly...

Anyways, I was reading through my Google Reader feed at MoFo posts and came across Singer Eats post that had a questionnaire and decided to do it too.

What is one food you thought you’d miss when you went vegan, but don’t?

Cheese. Usually. I don't think there's anything that I 100% don't miss. I just don't miss it as much as I thought I would. Brie and feta were two of my favorite cheeses and are hard to replace with vegan versions. I'm fine without and I don't spend time all my time thinking about stuff I'm not eating anymore, but, on occasion, it's missed.

What is a food or dish you wouldn’t touch as a child, but enjoy now?

Hm. I don't think I was a very particular child when it came to food. (Mom?) I don't remember ever pushing away food, it's more like I had my favorites and stuck to those. I wasn't exposed to a huge variety of foods growing up. My mom had her repertoire of dishes and didn't experiment much with her cooking. Oh, actually, I do remember making a gross face when my sister and mom would eat asparagus! Surprising since asparagus are such a fun looking veggie.

What vegan dish or food you feel like you “should” like, but don’t?

I dislike flowers in my baked goods and cooked dishes. The idea of lavender or rose disgusts me and they seem to be everywhere!

What beverage do you consume the most of on any given day?

Probably water, but just barely beating out the other stuff I drink on a given day.

What dish are you “famous” for making or bringing to gatherings?

Probably cake/cupcakes, but that's only when it's a birthday. I get really lazy/procrastinator for potlucks and end up bringing alcohol.

Do you have any self-imposed food rules (like no food touching on the plate or no nuts in sweets)?

No raisins in oatmeal cookies, it's a tease! you think they're chocolate chips and then you bite into the cookie...sigh...

What’s one food or dish you tend to eat too much of when you have it in your home?

Dr. Pepper.

What ingredient or food do you prefer to make yourself despite it being widely available prepackaged?

Umm...baked tofu, I guess. It seems hideously overpriced.

What ingredient or food is worth spending the extra money to get “the good stuff”?

Vegenaise.

Are you much of a snacker? What are your favorite snacks?

Lately, I've been getting into prunes, they're so yummy! Dried plums makes them sound so much tastier, no? Also, peanut butter and jelly, apples with peanut butter, soy yogurt with rolled oats-sunflower seeds-pumpkin seeds-flax meal, various baked goods from vegan bakeries here in Portland.

What are your favorite vegan pizza toppings?

nutritional yeast, vegan sausage or faux pepperoni, mushrooms, roasted garlic cloves

What is your favorite vegetable? Fruit?

veggie: kale. fruit: avocado!

What is the best salad dressing?

Goddess- i use it on the grain/bean/greens bowls i make, so yum!

What is your favorite thing to put on toasted bread?

Earth Balance.

What kind of soup do you most often turn to on a chilly day or when you aren’t feeling your best?

Veganomicon's Chickpea Noodle

What is your favorite cupcake flavor? Frosting flavor?

I like plain vanilla. For both really. But not always together...hm...for some reason I can't think of a flavored frosting or cupcake that I like better than vanilla...

What is your favorite kind of cookie?

I really have been diggin' the Oatmeal Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip ones from Vegan Cookies Invade.

What is your most-loved “weeknight meal”?

The aforementions grain/beans/green bowl. So easy, so healthy, so good!

What is one dish or food you enjoy, but can’t get anyone else in your household to eat?

I don't think I have that problem.

How long, in total, do you spend in the kitchen on an average day?

Depends, anywhere from 10 minutes to 1 hour.

Oh, hi, November 3!

Yeah, it's 3 days into Vegan Month of Food and this is my first post. But, hey, it could be worse! So, so much worse...

As ever, I don't have a theme (at the moment) that I'm going with, but it's going be whatever's knocking around my brain. If you have any suggestions, bring it!

I'm going to start with a post about the most beautiful bunch of lacinato -aka dinosaur- kale (which I've been misspelling and, therefore, mispronouncing...I've been saying lacinto...) I ever laid eyes on.

See how beautiful and crisp it is?? Well, perhaps you can't, but I promise you, it was lovely. Also, it was bugless, none of those pesky aphids to convince to rinse off. I got this bunch from the Farmers Market and I don't remember what booth I got them from, so not sure if it was organic, no spray, or what. Most likely not organic though since they normally have little bugs on them...

Anyways, I decided to use some of them for a scramble:

The above is onion, garlic, Anaheim pepper, a little Tamari, thyme, oregano and extra firm tofu. And probably some s&p.

The final product: kale and broccoli added towards the end. A piece of Dave's Killer (and he's not lying, it's the best bread ever!) Bread with some Earth Balance. I always top my tofu sautes with some nutritional yeast and hot sauce (Chalupa and Srirachi being my favorites).

I would love some suggestion for a flavor helper! I like these scrambles of mine, but they're not something I would serve to others because the flavor is a bit...blah.

Today was a sunny, beautiful day in Portland, I hope yours was too! I need to go get ready to hang out with a friend at Tube (vegan ham and cheese!! boozy vegan milkshakes! $2 well drinks!)...

Vegan Month of Food begins...tomorrow!

Every fall Vegan MoFo asks us vegan bloggers to blog the most that we can blog. Every year, I've gotten better at it. As in, I blog more times, not that my posts get better...

But so far, the most I've done is half the month. Let's just see if I can do better this time, shall we?

Click on to the above link for the hundreds of blogs that are participating this year! I love reading tons of blogs! Hopefully I won't be hungry when I do because it makes my stomach make hungry noises...

And a photo of me and my niecepup Matilda. We enjoy spending time together under the warmth of covers.

GoodBelly (Plus!)

I've been finding myself in poor health this last month or so, with various ailments coming and going. I've always considered myself to be "healthy as a horse" (wtf kind of phrase is that??) and have never been to the hospital, just urgent care for a 4 wheeler accident and the normal chicken pox crap. Oh, and I have back problems, but, really, I rarely get sick.

So for one ailment or another, I decided I wanted to take some probiotics. I haven't been eating a lot of (vegan) yogurt, so a supplement seemed necessary. I got some vegetarian cap Acidophilus, but decided to also buy some GoodBelly Plus, which is found with yogurts and the like in the fridge at your local grocer (though if they don't even carry soy yogurt at your local grocer, you're probably shit outta luck). I've tried GoodBelly before and I really enjoy their packaging and interesting flavors. This time I picked the Pomegranate Blackberry (looking online I realize I now have tried them all but the Strawberry). The "Plus" is the added vitamins and minerals, which includes 100% of both your B12 and Vit C. Flavorwise, I don't think this one was my favorite. The two flavors with berries kinda taste the same to me. I think the Mango may be my favorite. I wish they were less sweet, but you can't complain they taste gross. They're fruity and drinkable.

My favorite part about this product is the container. I think it's very Europeanesque. And, really, how can you resist a container that is smiling at you???

These little guys are about $1 a piece, so as a multi-vitamin with probiotics (20 billion "at time of manufacture"...so perhaps some are dead by consumption?), it's not that pricey, but I think I would prefer a pill for everyday.

I would like to try some of their other products, such as GoodBelly Splash and their family sized quarts. The quart sized have about 21 grms of sugar per serving, so a little more than I'd like in my juice, but not as much as I get when I'm guzzling the sweet nectar of the gods.

Just an FYI, this wasn't free. I did this product review of my own volition and money.

Nature's Path Gluten Free Cereals

Vanilla to the max!

I was given two samples of Nature's Path's new gluten free cereals. I have an on and off love affair with breakfast cereals. I'll eat it everyday for weeks and then I'll get sick of it and not eat it for at least a few weeks, if not months. I have been dabbling with eating less gluten and so this offer of free gluten free cereal excited me.

My first taste of both was a dry run, if you will. It was in my car when I picked up my salmonella-poisoned sister from Urgent Care and she thought she should eat something, so we opened them both up. Kim's opinion: Gross. My first, initial, opinion: Meh. But they grew on me! The Whole O's practically have no sweetness to them (actual nutrition facts: 4gm sugar per 2/3 cup...is that much?) and the taste is...off. But the more I ate them, the more I wanted to pop the little spheres in my piehole.

The Crunchy Vanilla Sunrise was a bit better initially. Again, it grew on me. I think I've mentioned before that I am suspicious of vanilla flavor in cereals. It usually comes off as too vanilla-y to me. I ate some of this with plain soymilk and thought it was good but that the vanilla flavor could be kicked down a notch...so I took the flavorless Whole O's and added them to the mix and it was good! It just evened out the vanillaness a bit. I've enjoyed bowls of the merry mix now, it makes a lovely snack or breakfast!

Thank you to Nature's Path for the free boxes of cereal! Thank you for making gluten free products for my celiac friends and for those trying to eat less of gluten!

Pizza Time!

Pizza!

Hey, y'all! I'm back with a review of Tofurkey's new pizzas. I got a coupon for a free one and so I picked up the Italian Sausage & Fire Roasted Veggie. People rave about Daiya cheese, but I'm one of those nonravers. I don't hate it, but I don't see how it's better than Teese or Follow Your Heart. I also think they should do thicker shreds because, normally, it has such a weird thin look when I see it on pizzas. I'm not sure if that makes sense, but perhaps you've seen what I'm talking about...

Anyways, the pizza was good. Not great. Not something I would spend $9, usually. I can see myself splurging on this in certain situations. It does have a lot of toppings and I think it's a bit bigger than your average small frozen pizza (But my memory could be wrong).

I dislike pizzas where the toppings and sauce go to the edge of the pie, which Tofurkey has done. It's a bit of a pet peeve of mine. I used to work at Hot Lips Pizza and the owner insisted on doing that. Personally, I like having a place to grip where my hands won't get messy. I also like pizza bones, you know, the crust, nice and plain. If I didn't want pizza bones I would order it Sicilian style or something!

Final Thoughts: Good in a pinch, but my homemade pizzas (made with the fantastic dough from Hot Lips here in Portland) kinda kick their ass...But when have you thought otherwise about a frozen pizza? I do love using Tofurkey's sausages on my pie, so they're still getting my money! :o)